ited knowledge of horses and the wildest freedom of the road, could
ever have made him perfect in. Valuable little parcels were brought to
him with particular instructions, and he pitched them into this hat, and
stuck it on again; as if the laws of gravity did not admit of such
an event as its being knocked off or blown off, and nothing like an
accident could befall it. The guard, too! Seventy breezy miles a day
were written in his very whiskers. His manners were a canter; his
conversation a round trot. He was a fast coach upon a down-hill turnpike
road; he was all pace. A waggon couldn't have moved slowly, with that
guard and his key-bugle on the top of it.

These were all foreshadowings of London, Tom thought, as he sat upon
the box, and looked about him. Such a coachman, and such a guard, never
could have existed between Salisbury and any other place. The coach
was none of your steady-going, yokel coaches, but a swaggering, rakish,
dissipated London coach; up all night, and lying by all day, and leading
a devil of a life. It cared no more for Salisbury than if it had been
a hamlet. It rattled noisily through the best streets, defied the
Cathedral, took the worst corners sharpest, went cutting in everywhere,
making everything get out of its way; and spun along the open
country-road, blowing a lively defiance out of its key-bugle, as its
last glad parting legacy.

It was a charming evening. Mild and bright. And even with the weight
upon his mind which arose out of the immensity and uncertainty of
London, Tom could not resist the captivating sense of rapid motion
through the pleasant air. The four greys skimmed along, as if they liked
it quite as well as Tom did; the bugle was in as high spirits as the
greys; the coachman chimed in sometimes with his voice; the wheels
hummed cheerfully in unison; the brass work on the harness was an
orchestra of little bells; and thus, as they went clinking, jingling,
rattling smoothly on, the whole concern, from the buckles of the
leaders' coupling-reins to the handle of the hind boot, was one great
instrument of music.

Yoho, past hedges, gates, and trees; past cottages and barns, and people
going home from work. Yoho, past donkey-chaises, drawn aside into the
ditch, and empty carts with rampant horses, whipped up at a bound upon
the little watercourse, and held by struggling carters close to the
five-barred gate, until the coach had passed the narrow turning in the
road. Yoho, by